Praise For Doherty

Boss Dean Saunders has praised the impact of defender Matt Doherty since he broke into the first team.

The Republic of Ireland Under-21 international was given his head by Saunders for the home game against Cardiff, and has since kept his place in the side, scoring his first goal for the club in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest.

“Matt has done well enough to stay in the team,” said Saunders.

“He got his first goal and he has done well.

“His positional play is good for a young player – half the battle is standing in the right place when the ball is on the opposite side or seeing danger and tracking people’s runs.

“He’s got a good attitude, he’s strong with an eye for a goal and an assist as well.

“He also got in behind their back four on Saturday when he rolled the ball across the face of the goal and we needed to score there.

“So considering he’s only a young man, he’s doing well.”

Saunders has also said Doherty could be in line for talks over a new deal, with the defender currently tied to the club until the summer of 2014.

The boss believes the addition of younger players will help the team as a whole.

He added: “Eventually we’ll have some younger players in the team to get the average age of the squad down.

“Part of my job is to bring some of the younger lads through as well.

“I didn’t expect to be putting them in right now in this situation but I felt I had to.

“We’ve got fresh faces in Jack Robinson, Kaspars Gorkss and Matt, who haven’t been affected by a losing mentality.

“Sometimes they lift everything and they have a fresh approach.

“We got another clean sheet at Millwall and until Saturday, we hadn’t been letting many goals in from open play.